How to Design Games for Deaf Children: Evidence-Based Guidelines - 2nd International Workshop on Evidence-Based Technology Enhanced Learning - page 85

3.2 Other Characteristics and Position of Text

Reading problems, issues with attention and memory suggest several guidelines
for how texts should be positioned in screens for playing games. This is particu-
larly true for instructions for playing games; accessible instructions accelerate the
time to perform the playing task. Firstly, according to what in Sect. 2.1, any ex-
planatory text , as in instructions , should use short and simple sentences, without
complex referential expressions [GL 3.2.1] . For instance, deaf children will have
problems to resolve who “her friend is” in the sentence “One day Ben and Sophie
visited the biggest swimming pool in town with their Mum and her friend from
work”. Moreover, given the visual attention orienting and selective skills of deaf
learners, the game should use visual clues or animations for directing the attention
of the child on relevant textual information [GL 3.2.2] . Moreover, relevant textual
information like instructions should occur in a separate dedicated part of the
screen, with a small amount of information because deaf children may have prob-
lems with longer fixation and slower reading times and, in general, they perform
better if limited amounts of text are made available one at a time [GL 3.2.3] . In-
structions should better be placed before the start of the game , as suggested by our
usability studies [GL 3.2.4] .

3.3 Characteristics and Positions of Other Objects on the Screen

According to the literature review of this paper on attention, young children have
more difficulties for serial recall and take more time for recovering attention. This
means that younger learners may need fewer choices than older children in
games . More in general, using the same items in the same position and order in
the interface should aid the recall of deaf children [GL 3.3.1]. On the screen, there
should not be distracting stimuli for the peripheral visual field of view because
deaf individuals are more distracted by peripheral events. On the edge of the
screen, the interface should have objects and motion stimuli that do not distract
the children from their main task [GL 3.3.2]. Deaf individuals are better than hear-
ing in their ability to orient spatial attention especially at reorienting it from one
location to another. More deaf subjects discriminate gross differences in direction
as leftward versus rightward. This means that the interface of the game should use
the motion of objects only in relation to the main task for the children [GL 3.3.3] .

3.4 Interaction and Feedback

In general, children are impatient and need immediate feedback: they expect to
see the results of their actions immediately; if nothing happens after their input,
children may repeat their action until something does occur. Deaf children are
problems to focus attention for too a long time in a reading task or demanding
playing activities. In general, a child should not be left idle in front of the screen
for too long a time without any stimulus or feedback. The game for deaf children,